The present invention relates to a resin composition and more particularly, to a polyphenylene ether resin composition excellent in impact properties and a thermoplastic resin composition excellent in impact resistance which comprises polyphenylene ether resin and polyolefin resin as main constitutional resin components.
Polyphenylene ether resins are useful resins having excellent mechanical and electrical properties and high heat resistance, but have the defects of low impact strength and inferior processability and solvent resistance. Therefore, at present, utilization of polyphenylene ether resins per se is severely limited.
For improving the low impact strength, proposals have been made to incorporate other resins or rubbers into polyphenylene ether resins.
However, according to these proposed processes, impact strength can be improved, but the excellent heat resistance of polyphenylene ether resins is inevitably damaged.
On the other hand, polyolefin resins have the advantages of cheapness and low specific gravity in addition to excellent processability and solvent resistance and are widely practically used as various shaped articles and films. However, polyolefin resins have the defect of low heat resistance and this defect hinders further extension of use of polyolefin resins.
Under the circumstances, it is easy for one skilled in the art to infer to blend polyphenylene ether resin with polyolefin resin which have respective excellent properties, thereby to produce a resin composition having the advantages of both resins and some proposals have already been made (Japanese Patent Kokoku No. 42-7069 and Japanese Patent Kokai No. 59-100159).
However, affinity between polyphenylene ether resin and polyolefin resin is originally very low and hence it is difficult to obtain resin composition excellent in mechanical properties by blending them and the above proposed resin compositions are not satisfactory in mechanical properties.